I am so excited about this! These are the kinds of actions ― among a plethora of others! ― which hold the potential to transform us and our world. Bless Rabbi Michael Lerner and all those who are engaged in the great universal struggle for racial, social, political, economic, and environmental justice. May we all be inspired to work together for a world of love, justice and environmental sanity! ― Molly
Join us to celebrate global inter-dependency--a progressive way to celebrate the July 4th weekend.
We realize that many of our community will be wanting to be with family and outdoors on July 4th, so we've scheduled our global interdependence celebration for one hour on Saturday July 3rd from 11 am Pacific Time (2 pm EDT).
Tikkun, the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and Beyt Tikkun often challenge the racism, sexism, homophobia, economic and political inequality, toxic nationalism, militarism, and other distortions that are an intrinsic consequence of global capitalism and the historically previous forms of class societies and patriarchy.
Sometimes others hear this as a total put down of America and Americans, though that is not our intent. So we use the July 4th weekend to affirm some of what is good in America and Americans, in particular the ways that working people and their families have struggled and at times succeeded in increasing freedoms and basic human rights for those who were at first excluded from the rights and privileges of this society, and to also celebrate that America at various points in its history welcomed new immigrants, including Jews, Irish, Italian, Chinese and others from Asia, and more recently from parts of Central and South America. So we join our fellow Americans on the July 4th weekend in affirming all the goodness of our country and its people.
Yet at the same time, we also want to acknowledge that nationalism, linked as it often is to militarism and selfishness toward others, continues to play a distorting role in the policies and consciousness not only of U.S. citizens, but in the citizens and policies of most countries of the world. For the past 150 years the global capitalist marketplace has rewarded practices that have increasingly destroyed much of the earth, polluted its water, air and land, and even at this moment continues to recklessly endanger the life support system of Earth. These are crimes against humanity, the earth, and God.
A first step in reversing these criminal behaviors is to develop a strong sense of our interdependence with the earth and with all of the people on the planet. That is what we are doing by asking people to use the July 4th weekend to affirm and celebrate what we are calling Inter-dependence Day.
It happens that July 3rd is also Shabbat, so we welcome you to join us for our Shabbat celebration that day at 9:30 Pacific Time and our somewhat curtailed Torah study at 10:30 to 11 am Pacific (you don’t have to be Jewish). And it is fine if you just join us for our Inter-dependence day celebration at 11 a.m. Pacific. I will be leading these events along with Cat Zavis and music from Ami Goodman.
If you haven’t been coming to those, and in response to the malevolent “zoom bombing” that we have experienced in the past, we are asking anyone who wishes to join us to register here (FREE). We will then send you the link to our Shabbat celebration, Torah study, and or the Inter-dependence day celebration, and then you are invited to come to any or all of the event that Saturday July 3rd. If you have already come to our Shabbat events in April, May and/or June, you can use the zoom address you already have from those (but not from our Passover Seder).
And if you have some music, poetry or anything else you would like us to consider including in our celebration, please send them to me at rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com.
For a world of love, justice and environmental sanity!
Rabbi Michael Lerner Editor, Tikkun
Sign up here: https://www.tikkun.org/special-events/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=a7d42072-729b-4447-b6de-8db85606ca99
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